When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [49]
“You tell me, no crap, more of what’s going on, and you get to eat.”
“Fine,” he said. “You win, Dr. O’Neill. But I want to see half of that fish on my plate before I talk.”
“Deal,” I said.
I put the trout fillet into a pan. Set the pan onto the red-hot coals. The aroma was incredible, mouthwatering.
I walked over to where Kit was sitting and hunkered down next to him so that I could see the view. As if on cue, the sun set. Great brush strokes of salmon and plum and whiskey colored the sky.
“Damn,” he whispered. “They don’t make them like this anywhere around Boston.”
I felt as strangely pleased as if I’d painted the sunset myself. For the moment at least, this was a really great adventure, a truly amazing one. Everything about it was appealing.
The fish was done in no time. I took the potatoes out of the coals, and sliced the tomato. Kit put everything on plates.
He and I ate and watched the breathtaking scene from our dinner table in the sky, talking quietly, but pretty much nonstop. The fish bones were in the ashes and we were sipping hot coffee. Kit, as he had promised, began to tell me what he knew.
He repeated what he had already told me, adding some information. He still kept it a little sketchy, which he said he had to do. The current crisis emanated from an outlaw biology lab. It had started with MIT students and a few professors in the late 1980s. It had definitely involved experiments with humans back then. The man who ran the radical group was named Anthony Peyser. I told Kit that I’d never heard of him; I’d have remembered the name. Besides that, I didn’t think I knew anyone who fit the description Kit gave me.
“There were charges in Boston, but the police couldn’t prove anything significant. The group moved to San Francisco, then to New Jersey, a short stint in England, maybe to get European financing. Then back to Boston again.
“The second time they came to Boston I nailed them, at least I thought I had. They were experimenting on homeless people with fatal diseases, or so they convinced them. They helped a couple of them die sooner than they would have. Somehow, everyone involved managed to get bail—and then they disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Until now?”
“Somebody in the group contacted a couple of past associates. Maybe they’d been in contact all along. I think that whoever it was might have been having attacks of morality and ethics. I wonder why. Anyway, Dr. James Kim in San Francisco and Dr. Heekin in Cambridge, Massachusetts, were contacted, and then ended up dead. They really don’t like witnesses, Frannie. They’re thorough, too, as you might expect scientists to be.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I sure got the point.
Kit stopped talking abruptly. He just stared out as the sun finally slipped below the horizon. I knew there had to be more to his story.
It struck me as funny, peculiar, strange, but I knew it was all over for me. Just like that! I liked looking at his strong face, the hard-chiseled cheekbones and chin. I liked the softness I saw in his eyes, too. It had never happened to me like this before, not even with David. I could intellectualize about it all I wanted to, but I was falling for Kit Harrison. Falling, or flying? I wondered.
“And that’s all you know?” I asked him. “You swear it is?”
“That’s what I know for sure, Frannie. It’s what you get for half a trout dinner.”
“All right, I guess that’s fair. How’s that scrape on your stomach?” I asked.
“I used to play rugby at Holy Cross, then in the Boston and D. C. beer leagues. I think I’ll pull through.”
I frowned a little at the tough guy posturing. “Did you put antibacterial gunk on it?”
“It’s not that bad, Doc. It’s a scratch, a scrape.”
Fireflies flashed intermittently in the gathering dark. Once upon a time I knew a lot about fireflies, but I couldn’t remember any of it now. I was thinking about the tufts of gold hair on Bean’s chest and the abrasion roughing up his perfect skin. I was remembering the softness of his lips, and his gentle